A group of international astronomers in the UK, France and the USA, led by the University of Leicester, have found proof to confirm the distance and brightness of the most extreme ultra-luminous X-ray source, which may herald a new type of Black Hole.

A group of international astronomers in the UK, France and the USA, led by the University of Leicester, have found proof to confirm the distance and brightness of the most extreme ultra-luminous X-ray source, which may herald a new type of Black Hole.

How can a Black Hole be luminous? I thought the whole concept of a Black Hole is that it was so powerful that even light could not escape.

Nothing can escape from a back hole once it crosses the event horizon because the escape velocity equals the speed of light there. However, light and energy can escape from something still outside of it, and gas, dust and anything else falling into a black hole will emit a lot of energy before it's swallowed by the black hole. Obviously this new kind of black hole is actively feeding on in-falling matter, because an isolated black hole is invisible except for the effects of it's gravity upon something else we can see. That is how the black hole that inhabits the inner core of our galaxy has been found, and how they were found in many other normal galaxies too. Every medium or large sized galaxy has a supper massive back hole in it's heart, and apparently so do at least some globular clusters as well. M-54 and M-15 are two globular clusters that are giving off strong X-ray emissions from their centers that is consistent with the presence of an actively feeding black hole.

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